As I write this, I'm approaching the launch of my next Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course. If you would like to experience MBSR for yourself, or are simply curious to understand a bit more, do get in touch.
As I prepare to teach the MBSR course once more, I am reflecting on my own journey with mindfulness. I've been asking, "What motivates me to meditate?", remembering what got me started and what keeps me going when times get tough. I wonder, what's your motivation to meditate? Whether you are just starting out or maintaining a long term practice, being clear of your intentions to be mindful can very helpful.
I wonder, what's your motivation to meditate? Whether you are just starting out or maintaining a long term practice, being clear of your intentions to be mindful can very helpful.
To support my reflections, I've been looking back at old journal entries. I was also touched to revisit my blog piece of January 2022, where I share what drew me to mindfulness in the first place and what has motivated me to persist with it despite the inevitable ups and downs of trying to establish a committed to practice in anything.
It can be tender revisiting younger versions of our self - remembering how things were for us then... times of our life that offered joy or sadness and how resourced (or not) we were to cope with that at the time.
Interestingly, as I read what I shared in 2022, so most of it still feels current and true. The honesty with which I share about the sadness and loneliness that brought me to mindfulness and how my mediation practice has supported me through tough times stands true. As does the healing and practical ways of responding to suffering and struggle that mindfulness has offered.
Jon Kabat-Zinn reminds us that mindfulness serves to "relieve suffering and catalyse greater compassion and wisdom in our lives".
I recognise that my compassion practice has also deepened and matured in the intervening years and I am proud to be a certified teacher of the wonderful Mindfulness-Based Compassionate Living programme which I explored in season two of my podcast.
This practice of compassion has supported me in my work, offering a deep understanding and kindness towards the complexities of being human and the challenges my clients face. But one of the truths of compassion practice is that we need to start close in, tending to our own hurts and needs first. This has been, and continues to be, a resourcing - and at times challenging - journey.
Looking at the world with kind eyes also helps me appreciate the truth of Jon Kabat-Zinn's intention for MBSR that cultivating mindfulness will serve to "relieve suffering and catalyse greater compassion and wisdom in our lives". This, in essence is what the MBSR course is training us to do - in our own lives and creating ripples of mindful compassion for all those we interact with.
This feels increasingly important in the world right now as we not only face conflicts and political unrest but a climate and biodiversity crisis that will change the course not only of humanity but all beings we share the planet with.
I'd love to say that mindfulness and compassion are a magic wand and that, since I've been practicing mediation, all is wonderful and there are no problems. Of course that would be both untrue and unrealistic.
I, like all of us, face challenges, frustrations and sadness as well as opportunities for fulfilment and joy. What I can say, in all honesty, is that mindfulness helps me deal with all of that. What Jon Kabat-Zinn coined 'the full catastrophe' of being alive and human.
Likewise, I firmly believe that practicing mindfulness and compassion can be instrumental in what activist and teacher Joanna Macy calls 'the great turning' - a waking up from the paradigm that has us destroying our planet - shifting to wise action and compassionate care of our home and all the beings who share it. This is why I have made the intersection between mindfulness, compassion and nature-based approaches the focus of my MSc studies.
Again, with full disclosure, there are times when my meditation practice stutters and falters. I feel less motivated to sit down to formal meditation, life gets busy or routines simply get disrupted. But I have NEVER been tempted to quit - to give it up. Why? Because it works for me. I see, hear and feel the positive impact in my life and for those I care for. If I'd found something more effective I'd be doing that instead.
Sure, I can be lazy and unmotivated at times (like most of us) but over decades of exploring ways to work with my own low moods, mindfulness and compassion have been the things that have helped me relate to this in a real and authentic way. This also opens the doorway to enable me to appreciate the moments of joy and wonder.
And perhaps, most importantly it helps me align with what Joanna Macy, in one of her recent books, calls Active Hope - taking practical actions towards the futures we hope for ourselves, each other and our planet.
I realise that what brought me to mindfulness in the first place was a personal struggle but, more than a decade on, what keeps me practicing is my own lived experience of the positive impact in my own life alongside and active hope of what is possible when mindfulness and compassion are even more widely practiced .
It's my heartfelt wish that my work, in its own small way, sows seeds of mindfulness and kindness in this troubled world. If you'd like to speak with me more about how we may work together to make that happen I'd love to hear from you.
I will close by sharing the wishes offered in traditional loving kindness practice,
"May all beings be happy, may all beings be well, may all beings be peaceful and live with ease and kindness."
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